Glossary of Care Services
24-Hour Care: In-home care is provided for a continuous 24-hour or full day. Also known as around-the-clock home care.
ADLs: Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) describe basic tasks essential for day-to-day functioning. These include bathing, dressing, grooming, eating, mobility, and toileting.
Aging In Place: “Aging in Place” refers to seniors who remain in their homes as they get older instead of moving to an independent or assisted living community.
Alzheimer's Disease: Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disease and a severe brain disorder that destroys memory and other essential mental functions, including communication, behavior, and thinking.
Arthritis: Arthritis is a general term for conditions that cause joint pain, stiffness, swelling, and other symptoms. Over 200 conditions affect joints, but the most common form of arthritis is osteoarthritis.
Care Plan (or Plan of Care): Care plans include tasks and goals to help caregivers provide the best care for physical, mental, and emotional well-being. This document outlines the home care services required and the client’s preferred initiation date for care. Comfort Keepers develops an individualized and completely confidential Plan of Care for each client.
Care Team: A care team is committed to helping someone improve their physical, emotional, and social well-being. This can include healthcare professionals, caregivers, family members, friends, spiritual advisors, social workers, and other support systems.
Caregiver: Comfort Keepers caregivers provide companionship and personal care, including assistance with bathing, dressing, grooming, and other quality-of-life services. These can include mobility and safety assistance, help with meals and housekeeping, transportation to appointments and social events, and activities that promote engagement, purpose, connection, and joy.
Change in Condition Monitoring: This term refers to a specific task that caregivers perform, which involves observing clients and recording/reporting signs of mental, physical, or emotional behavioral changes.
Companion Care: Companion care, or companionship, provides seniors with non-medical support, including emotional support, friendship, and socialization. Everyday activities include conversation, mental stimulation (such as playing games, going for a walk, or listening to music), meal preparation, laundry, light housekeeping, grocery shopping, running errands, transportation to appointments and social events, and reminders for hygiene and grooming. At Comfort Keepers, our caregivers also provide medication reminders and communication with a client’s loved ones. We also focus on activities that bring joy, provide mental stimulation, and encourage physical and emotional well-being. Companion care is key to maintaining positive mental health and protecting against senior isolation and loneliness.
Coronavirus: Also known as COVID-19, Coronavirus is a type of virus that causes mild to severe symptoms, including fever, cough, shortness of breath, sore throat, breathing difficulty, and more. Symptoms may be different depending on age and underlying health conditions.
End-of-Life Care: When a loved one is diagnosed with limited life expectancy, they often have a strong desire to spend the final days in the comfort of home. Comfort Keepers supports seniors and their loved ones by collaborating with a hospice agency or medical provider to meet the family’s comprehensive care needs. We will help care for your loved one, assist with household tasks, and provide emotional and moral support to the family.
Family Room/Family Portal: The Family Room is an online portal that provides transparency in care and allows family members to be involved in their loved one’s care. With Family Room, family members can view caregiver notes and photos, schedules, and invoices, and communicate directly with Comfort Keepers’ care team.
GrandPad: GrandPad is a simple touchscreen tablet designed for seniors to stay connected. It opens a new world for seniors by connecting them with family, friends, and caregivers through video chat, favorite games, and other essential apps. Read more about GrandPad, which is available through selected Comfort Keepers locations.
Home Care or In-Home Care: While in-home care can encompass both medical and non-medical care, it typically refers to non-medical care, such as companionship, homemaking services, and personal care.
Home Health: Home health is a term for skilled nursing care and other functions such as speech, physical, or occupational therapy.
Home Health Aide: Home health aide and caregiver are synonymous terms that can be used interchangeably. A Comfort Keepers home health aide can provide companionship and personal care, including assistance with bathing, dressing, grooming, and other quality-of-life services. These can include mobility and safety assistance, help with meals and housekeeping, transportation to appointments and social events, and activities that encourage engagement, purpose, connection, and joy.
Hospice Care: Hospice care offers specialized comfort care and emotional support for individuals with life-limiting illnesses. In hospice care situations, medical professionals have stopped attempts to cure or treat the disease because of the advanced stage of illness.
IADLs: Instrumental Activities of Daily Living (IADLs) are those activities that are important in enhancing a client’s quality of life. IADLs include shopping, paying bills, performing household chores (such as cleaning and laundry), and meal preparation.
Incontinence: Incontinence is defined as the loss of bladder or bowel control.
Interactive Caregiving: This approach focuses on engaging with our clients through collaborative activities rather than simply providing services. While our caregivers assist with a senior's daily needs, they encourage participation and engagement whenever possible. This enables our caregivers to establish meaningful relationships with clients and maintain their physical and mental well-being. Interactive Caregiving is the signature care approach provided by Comfort Keepers.
Ischemia is a cardiovascular condition that restricts or reduces blood supply to the heart, resulting in decreased oxygen and blood flow.
Live-in Care: Live-in care is similar to home care, but caregivers reside with their clients in their own homes.
Memory Care: This is a distinct form of long-term care designed to meet the needs of people with Alzheimer’s, dementia, or other types of memory problems.
Mobility Assistance: Mobility assistance encompasses any activity that helps someone who needs assistance with mobility.
MS: MS, or Multiple Sclerosis, is a central nervous system disease in which the immune system eats away at the protective covering of the nerves. This can disrupt communication between the nerves and the brain.
Myocardial Infarction: A myocardial infarction is another term for a heart attack or a blockage of blood flow to the heart.
Palliative Care: Palliative care is a specialized treatment for patients with serious illnesses, which includes medical care to manage pain and symptoms, as well as emotional and practical support. Palliative care teams include doctors, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, spiritual advisors, and in-home caregivers. During palliative care, healthcare professionals continue to try to cure the disease.
Parkinson's Disease: Parkinson’s disease is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects neurons in a specific area of the brain. It results in issues with movement and often starts with tremors in one hand.
Personal Care: Personal care is a broad term that supports basic personal hygiene and activities of daily living, including dressing, grooming, and toileting. Comfort Keepers’ trained caregivers assist with personal care needs, ranging from standby support to comprehensive care, tailored to each client’s individual needs. This can include basic tasks, such as bathing, mobility assistance, incontinence, and toileting care, preparing and serving meals, to more hands-on personal care, including position changes for those clients that are bedbound and specialized care for those with memory issues or cognitive impairments, fall risk assessment and prevention, and change in condition monitoring. Personal home care services can also include assistance with outings, social events, shopping trips, and other activities of interest to maintain physical and emotional engagement.
Pneumonia: Pneumonia is lung inflammation caused by a bacterial or viral infection. Common symptoms include cough, fever, chills, and shortness of breath.
Private Duty Nursing: Unlike traditional in-home care services, private duty nurses provide one-on-one skilled medical care. They are qualified to offer this care in the comfort of the patient's home or a facility such as a hospital or nursing home. Private duty nurses are Registered Nurses (RNs) or Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs).
Respite Care: Respite care temporarily relieves primary caregivers from their responsibilities by transferring primary caregiving responsibilities to another person, typically a professional caregiver, relative, or friend.
Safety Choice: Comfort Keepers exclusively offers in-home safety technologies, including medical alert systems and motion detectors.
Social Determinants of Health: The conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age. These factors include socioeconomic status, education, neighborhood, employment, social support networks, and access to healthcare.
Sundown Syndrome, also known as Sundown Syndrome or Sundowning Syndrome, is a condition most often associated with Alzheimer’s and dementia. It typically occurs in the late afternoon or early evening and can include a period of confusion, agitation, irritability, or restlessness. For some, it continues into the night and can make sleep difficult.
TIA: Transient ischemic attack, or TIA, is a brief stroke-like attack that requires immediate medical attention. In some, TIA is a warning sign of a future stroke.
Transitional Care: home care for those transitioning home after a hospital stay, injury, procedure, or rehabilitation facility. Transitional care can include transportation home and follow-up appointments, assistance with medication reminders, support for physician-prescribed exercise or diet programs, and other in-home care services.
